There are many techniques to generate illusions, or specifically to present artificial experiences over an observer's experiences. An artificial experience may enable an observer to experience a surrounding space by observing and interacting with an artificial environment, as well as the objects that are in that environment.
Illusion techniques may relate to how to position imagery within an environment. For example, the Pepper's Ghost illusion uses half mirrors or semi-reflective glass panes to present images next to physical objects. Illusion techniques may also relate on how to animate imagery. With the advent of computerized graphics, there are an ever increasing number of illusion techniques relate to computer animations. For example, the Pinball 2000™ platform from Williams™ uses Pepper's Ghost techniques to display computer generated objects not only next to pinball bumpers and obstacles, but also to interact with the pinball in motion.
Accordingly, objects in an environment may be fully computer generated, and such objects may be referred to as virtual objects or virtual items. Further, a computer generated environment is called a virtual environment. In contrast, real world items are called physical items. The real world comprises a physical environment and physical objects. While physical items may be called real items in some contexts, the term “physical” is used in this patent application to prevent confusion in referring to objects in augmented or virtual “reality” environments and objects in the “real world.”
The technique of overlaying animated virtual objects, over physical objects and a physical environment, is called augmented reality. Specifically, an observer's experience in the physical world may be augmented with computer animations presented in observer's context. Thus, the addition of virtual objects not only add to the observer's experience, the virtual objects may become relevant to the observer's activities at that time.
Augmented reality is distinct from virtual reality. Augmented reality overlays virtual objects over the physical world. In contrast, virtual reality is comprised solely of virtual objects and generally is a completely virtual experience. For example, Google Glasses™ allow an observer to perceive the physical world through glasses, but overlay virtual objects over the glasses to augment the wearer's experience. In contrast, Oculus Rift™ displays solely virtual objects. In order for the wearer to perceive the physical world in augmented reality, cameras that stream video of the physical world may overlay images of the physical world into the wearer's virtual world.
With the rise of the Internet and e-commerce, searching, inspecting, and purchasing objects via a computer over the internet has become a daily experience. With the ubiquity of computing resources and multimedia capture devices, e-commerce experiences have been the subject of augmented reality. For example, Lego™ stores have computer screens such that when a customer holds an unboxed Lego kit, the screen shows the customer holding the box with an animated virtual constructed kit on the box. As the customer moves the box, the virtual objects move as well, thereby providing the customer with a degree of manipulation control over the virtual objects. However, present augmented reality experiences are still rudimentary and limited, and subject to improvement.